Deeper Commentary
Psa 51:1 For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba- David's repentance in 2 Samuel 12 appears very short and sweet, with forgiveness immediately granted as if it were a rubber stamp. But the issues were serious- the sin of presumption [despising Yahweh's word], murder and adultery. The Psalms give a deeper insight into David's depth of repentance. The two perspectives are helpful because repentance at times can involve overthinking and over analysis, to the point we miss the simple truth of God's forgiveness. The deal is that simple, in one sense. But we have no entitlement to His grace, and it does require the lengthy matters of the heart we have in the penitential Psalms.
It is amazing how sudden David's proper repentance seems to have come. There is no reason to be unduly afraid of a sudden, emotional confession of sin, prompted by a certain circumstance, as David's was by Nathan's parable. Psalm 51 may well have been prayed but moments after Nathan finished his parable. And Psalm 32, describing the joy of David's repentance, would have followed soon after. The Psalms are several times presented in pairs which are related to each other; and Ps. 50 and 51 are certainly connected.
The language about God not wanting sacrifice is clearly related (Ps. 50:8 = Ps. 51:16,17). The Psalm is a threat of judgment upon God's people, but clearly it is relevant to David. There is a structural connection between the Psalms:
A 50:1–6 About sacrifice and Zion
B 50:7–15 Deliverance and sacrifice
C 50:16–21 The rebuke
D 50:22–23 The call to repent given judgment to come
E 51:1 The appearance of Nathan to condemn David
D 51:1–2 An appeal to God's grace
C 51:3–9 Confession
B 51:10–17 About sacrifice and deliverance
A 51:18–19 About sacrifice and Zion.
Have mercy on me, God, according to Your grace. According to the multitude
of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions-
Mercies and truth
are often references to the promises to Abraham- to bless his seed with
forgiveness of sins (Acts 3:25,26). Like us, in crises we are thrown back
upon the basics of our faith. The promises to Abraham which are the basis
of the new covenant. It is noteworthy that Peter appeals to Israel to repent and be
converted “that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19)- quoting the
words of Ps. 51:1, where the sin of David with Bathsheba is ‘blotted out’
after his repentance and conversion. Each sinner who repents and is
baptized and leads the life of ongoing conversion is therefore living out
the pattern of David’s repentance. “Have mercy on me, O God…” is quoted by the publican in Lk. 18:13. He
felt that David’s prayer and situation was to be his. And he is held up as
the example for each of us.
David’s experience of God’s grace stayed with him when he faced up to
the results of his errors in the future, too. From experience, he can ask
to fall into the Lord’s hand rather than man’s, because “his
mercies
are great” (2 Sam. 24:14)- using the same two Hebrew words
he had used when Nathan came to him here in Ps. 51:1 AV: “Have mercy upon
me… according unto the multitude [Heb. ‘greatness’] of thy
tender mercies”. And so the experience of God’s gracious mercy over
one sin fortifies us to believe in His grace when, sadly, we fall again;
although, in passing, I think that in 2 Sam. 24, David himself didn’t
really do so much wrong. Yet he perceived himself to have sinned, so the
point is still established.
We find the Psalms so often expressing David’s intense anger- even to
the extent of contradicting his other more gracious statements about
people, and also being at variance with his own beggings for mercy and
grace at the time of his sin with Bathsheba. Consider
“Hold them guilty, O
God; Let them fall by their own counsels; Thrust them out in the multitude
of their transgressions; For they have rebelled against thee” (Ps. 5:10).
Yet David has to use these very words about himself in Ps. 51:1 when he
pleads with God to be merciful to him. In
the bigger picture, God used David's sin with Bathsheba to try to correct
David's judgmentalism against others. David’s ‘imprecatory
Psalms’, in which he asks for bloodcurdling judgments upon his enemies,
are hard to justify in the light of the Lord’s teachings. They appear to be
a continuation of the moments of bitterness, anger and brutality which we
saw in the above mentioned historical examples.
"Mercy" or grace is the same word David used in 2 Sam. 12:22 ["who knows if God will be gracious to me"], and confirms our suggestion there that David's begging for grace about his sick child was really praying for grace for himself. The child's death was understood by him as his salvation through sacrificial atonement. Which is why he doesn't mourn the child's death but is so upbeat and positive afterwards.
Blotting out sin is clearly alluded to in the encouragement to
the exiles that "I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for
My own sake, and remembers them no more" (Is. 43:25). Time and again we
find David's experience presented as that of all God's children.
Psa 51:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin-
David perhaps alludes to how Bathsheba had washed herself after
sex with him, at his home, before she returned to her house.
This in New Testament terms would equate with the desire to be washed and
regenerated in baptism. "The washing of regeneration" (Tit. 3:5) may
allude here. The Mosaic rituals required sinners or unclean persons to
wash themselves,
and to cleanse
themselves of
uncleanness through performing rituals; but David moves closer to the
understanding of grace by realizing that he has to ask
God to
wash him. For there was no help for him in any of the Mosaic
rituals, given the nature of his sins. This need for washing from sin is
relevant to Judah in their later sinfulness (s.w. Jer. 4:14).
Israel were
to be encouraged by David's experience that they could receive "plenteous"
redemption (Ps. 130:7; s.w. "wash me
thoroughly from my iniquity"
in Ps. 51:2), and be "abundantly pardoned" (s.w. Is. 55:7).
There is a totality and abundance in God's forgiveness- a quality we find
hard to understand seeing we never experienced this quality of forgiveness
when men forgave us.
David asks God to wash him from his sins (Ps. 51:2). The Hebrew means literally to tread out or down, alluding to how a fuller trod clothes to remove the dirt or old stain; he needed more than mere rinsing, he perceived that his sin was deeply ingrained. This is the sense of how the word is used in Mic. 7:19: "He will tread our iniquities under foot; and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea". The Lord's clothing is presented as whiter than any human fuller can whiten; this is the extent of our forgiveness and the total nature of the righteousness imputed to us. Judah of Micah's time were invited to experience the same cleansing as David had. The washing, cleansing and blotting out (:1) speak of the removal of a stain in the way that only God can do. The stain of David's sin wasn't removed from him in a social sense- the consequences were ever before him and God's judgment of him involves exactly that. So the removal of the stain was achieved by God only in David's conscience and inner parts of his heart. This may account for his subsequent proclamation of himself [in his later Psalms] as innocent and his desire to see judgment upon other sinners. On the other hand, these statements may well reflect a diminution in his sense of sin and repentance as time went on. As ever with David, we are left to ponder his apparently divided heart.
Psa 51:3 For I acknowledge my transgressions- This very phrase was
used by David in insisting that he did not acknowledge any
transgression in him whilst in exile from Saul (1 Sam. 24:11). What he
said and felt then may have been relatively true, compared to the
unspirituality of Saul and the false accusations against him. But perhaps
there was an element of the overly self righteous in his words, and the
sin with Bathsheba made him realize this. It is the
same phrase which is
as it were put in the mouth of the repentant exiles in Is. 59:12; they
were intended to follow David's path of repentance.
My sin is constantly before
me- David's confession of sin in Ps. 51:3,4 is packed with Job allusions;
as if Job's physical trials brought about the same effect as David's full
recognition of his sin. The extent
of his sorrow is heavily stressed: "My sorrow is continually before
me... my sin is ever before me" (Ps. 38:17; 51:3 AV). How much sorrow is there
for our sins? Have the years mellowed our terror at sin? Things which once
appalled us can so easily become sins of habit, the real sorrow we once
experienced on committing them can be watered down to just a vague tickle
of conscience. The significance of David's sin and repentance being held
up as an example of our own should be a good antidote against such
problems. The chilling thing is, despite all this awareness of his sin
during the nine month period, when he was told the parable by Nathan- he
just didn’t fully see it. Every part of the story had such relevant application,
but David was blinded to it. He knew he had sinned, but this was only on a
surface level. “Thou art the man” was still news to him. “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not
forget thy commandments” (Ps. 119:176) was likely rewritten by David with
his mind on his follies relating to Bathsheba. The point, is in the ‘lost’
state, he still remembered the commandments. He didn’t turn his back on
God; and neither do we, in our semi-spiritual unspirituality. We can
likewise be blinded to true, personal understanding of God’s message
because of our refusal to truly repent. Corinth and the Hebrews
could not understand the strong meat of the word because they were
divided; their divisiveness hindered their understanding. Husbands and
wives find their prayers hindered unless they are themselves united.
Psa 51:4 Against You, and You only, have I sinned- Perhaps David uses
the idea of "only" in the sense of "You above all", for he had sinned
against Bathsheba, Uriah and other related parties. Or more negatively, we
could wonder whether again he is limiting his recognition of sin, by
reasoning that he had not sinned against Uriah since he was dead, nor
against Bathsheba in that David [wrongly?] counted her as equally culpable.
And done that which is evil in Your sight; that You may be proved right when You speak, and justified when You judge- He recognized that God works through our sinfulness- he is effectively saying 'I sinned so that You might be justified...'. These words are quoted in Rom. 3:4,5 in the context of Paul's exultation that "our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God"- in just the same way as David's did! Because God displays His righteousness every time He justifies a repentant sinner, He is in a sense making Himself yet more righteous. We must see things from God's perspective, from the standpoint of giving glory to God's righteous attributes. If we do this, then we can see through the ugliness of sin, and come to terms with our transgressions the more effectively. And Paul quotes David's sin with Bathsheba as our supreme example in this. We along with all the righteous ought to “shout for joy” that David really was forgiven (Ps. 32:11)- for there is such hope for us now. David is our example. And yet the intensity of David’s repentance must be ours. He hung his head as one in whose mouth there were no more arguments, hoping only in the Lord’s grace (Ps. 38:14 RVmg.). Notice too how Ps. 51:1 “Have mercy on me, O God…” is quoted by the publican in Lk. 18:13. He felt that David’s prayer and situation was to be his. And he is held up as the example for each of us.
David was very conscious that his sin had been "in Your (God's) sight" (Ps. 51:4). He thought he had sinned secretly, even though the record describes how his servants and messengers knew what was going on. Now he recognizes the utter folly of thinking that any sin can be kept secret from God. We live in His sight, mentally and physically. The psalms of repentance have several examples of him talking like this. It may be to this Davidic theme that the parable of the prodigal son (i.e. each of us) refers: "I have sinned... in Your sight" (Lk. 15:18,21). It is significant that our Lord's supreme parable of repentance refers back to that of David. It has been observed that there are many connections between the Psalms related to the Bathsheba incident, and those which are especially prophetic of Christ's crucifixion. David's intense suffering on account of sin was therefore prophetic of our Lord's mental and physical suffering for the same reason. He there felt as a condemned sinner, whilst personally spotless, because of the depth of His identification with sinful man. It is truly breathtaking to discern how God works through our sins, to the extent that through the struggle for repentance which they engender, they can associate us with the sufferings of His sinless Son.
In Rom. 3:4, Paul speaks of how God will “overcome when You are brought to judgment [Gk.]”. “Overcome” is the legal word for winning a case in court. It is our doubts as to the extent of God’s grace, that He abides faithful even throughout our unfaithfulness, which are effectively our bringing God to court, to judgment. Paul is here quoting Ps. 51:4, which were David’s words of reflection upon his sin unto death, and God’s forgiveness of him. He reflected that he had sinned so that God might be justified when He is brought to judgment by us. Again we are up against an amazing grace. God uses our sin, our doubt of His forgiveness, in order to declare Himself yet more righteous when He is put in the dock to answer against our false charges: ‘Is He really able to forgive me that? Will He really not hold this eternally against me? Will I really be saved, sinner that I am? Can God really accept me after what I have done, all I have failed to do as I should, all I have not been...?’. These are the kinds of questions with which we accuse God. Effectively the case against God’s grace is that He will not actually forgive, justify and save weak sinners. And He gloriously wins the case against us. And He even uses our sin, as He used David’s (who becomes a figure of us all), in order to prove this to us and to the world. And so, in a matchless logical tour de force, Paul triumphs in Rom. 3:5: “Our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God". The immediate context of the quotation in Romans 3 is Paul's argument that God has not forgotten His people nor been unjust to them. He is willing to show the same amazing grace to them as He showed David. Any denial of our sin is to condemn God, to bring Him to judgment. This was Job's mistake: "Will you altogether annul my righteousness, condemn Me, that you may be righteous?". And this is the answer to all who wallow in spiritual depression and complaint that God is unreasonable, too harsh and unreasonably distant from them. David sinned "so that" God might be justified and glorified. David didn't surely intend this to be the outcome as he stood on the roof gaping at Bathsheba. But in God's bigger purpose, He used that sin as He does all human failure to His final glorification. And we can only marvel at the triumph of His grace in this.
David's confession that he had sinned against God uses the very language of faithful Joseph who refused ongoing sexual temptation with these words (Gen. 39:9). Could this not imply that Bathsheba wife of Uriah was seen by David as similar to Potiphar’s wife? Perhaps she was; or perhaps we are to see here another example of David seeking to mitigate his sin. There is no hint in the psalms of David's regret for having sinned against an innocent Bathsheba. Her child had to die; the retribution did not just come upon David. The incident is referred to as "the matter of Uriah" (1 Kings 15:5); her name does not figure in those sinned against. "She came in unto him, and he lay with her" (2 Sam. 11:4) is an odd way of putting it; it reverses the usual Biblical reference to intercourse as a man coming in to the woman. The reason for this inversion seems to be to balance the blame. And there seems an evident similarity between the way the sin occurred within the city, and the way Dt. 22:24 says that in cases of adultery both parties were to be stoned if the sin occurred within a city and the woman didn’t cry out. Bathsheba doesn’t seem to have cried out- and so she bears equal blame, it would seem. This makes Bathsheba more of a sinner than a saint. This said, Nathan's parable describes David as killing the sweet lamb (Bathsheba); if she was partly guilty for the actual act, this may suggest a killing of her spirituality by David, at least temporarily.
Psa 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity. In sin my mother
conceived me-
It could be that David was incorrect in this.
His sin made him
perhaps blame it upon his being conceived out of wedlock; which would
explain the tension between him and his much older brothers. But our
biological background is no excuse for sin. Or perhaps David was blaming
his sin upon some false idea that human conception, birth and being is of
itself sinful. But this isn't the true picture of human nature. For
whatever we posit about human nature, we are saying about the Lord Jesus,
who fully shared our nature and yet was holy, harmless and undefiled (Heb.
7:26). Clearly being human, having human nature, doesn't of itself
alienate God from man. Nor are we inevitable sinners. So it seems to me
that here David is here excusing his sin by wrongly blaming it upon such
other factors. Again we get the sense so often that David's repentance was
not as thorough going as it might have been.
But there is another, somewhat complicated, explanation of these strange words. I noted on :1 that Psalms 50 and 51 are related. By considering this in more detail, we see that this verse is the match to Ps. 50:20:
A 50:2, 5: "Out of ZION... a covenant with me by SACRIFICE"
B 50:8 "your BURNT OFFERINGS are continually before Me"
C 50:9 "I will not accept a bull from your house"
D 50:15 "call on me... I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me"
E 50:18–20 recitation of Decalogue
F 50:20 "You slander your own MOTHER’S child"
G 50:22 call to repentance: you who forget GOD
H 51:1 Nathan’s confrontation of David
Ga 51:1 prayer of repentance:
Fa 51:5 "a sinner when my MOTHER conceived me"
Ea 51:6 "teach me wisdom"
Da 51:14 "deliver me from bloodshed... and my tongue will sing aloud"
Ca 51:16 "You have no delight in sacrifice"
Ba 51:16 "if I were to give a BURNT OFFERING"
Aa 51:18, 19 Do good to ZION... then You will delight in right SACRIFICE"
David had been accused of slandering his own mother's son- namely himself and perhaps his brother. Here in Ps. 51:5 he admits that what he has said; he has accused his mother of conceiving in sin, out of wedlock. Perhaps David's tensions with his brothers had led to him accusing one of them of being illegitimate.
"Brought forth" is AV "shapen". "Shapen" is from a Hebrew word to twist around, and can have the sense of moral perversion. David appears to be blaming his sins on being born twisted, a sinner even in the womb. But this is not the case, for the Lord was likewise conceived and didn't sin and was holy and harmless. So it is hard not to think that David isn't trying to justify himself by blaming his nature and conception. On the other hand, contrition over a particular sin quite rightly makes us perceived how very sinful we are in so many other ways. No doubt David felt like that, but it seems he goes a tad too far in blaming his sins upon his human condition.
Psalm 119 gives us the impression that David loved God's commandments, but lamented he had not followed them in his life- indeed he fears some kind of shame if his sins catch up with him. His fear of shame is often repeated (:6,22,31,39,46,51,80,116,141); this could refer to some public shame for an openly revealed sin. Or it could reference his sense of shame that "in sin did my mother conceive me" and his sense of shame that he was a poor man now in the opulence of court life. Possibly his illegitimate background had been hushed up, although it was known by "the one who taunts me... the arrogant mock me... utterly derided me" (:42,51); but when his sin with Bathsheba is revealed, he openly states for all the world to know that his mother conceived him "in sin". Yet despite this potential shame, David says he will cling to God's word of promise that he would be king. If his mother were a Moabite or non-Israelite, accounting for his red hair ["ruddy of countenance"], he may have assumed that he as an illegitimate Gentile could never be king of Israel- if that were known about. We recall how Jephthah and Abimelech were the sons of prostitutes and how this militated against their leadership (Jud. 8:29-31; 11:1,2). Jesse was asked to parade his sons before Samuel in order for a king to be chosen. None of them are chosen; but when asked if he has any other sons, Jesse answers rather awkwardly and obliquely that there is David who is minding the sheep. That sounds an excuse as the family did have a "keeper" of the sheep apart from David (1 Sam. 17:20). This would be appropriate if David were in fact illegitimate. He was therefore "a stranger to my brothers, And an alien to my mother’s children" (Ps. 69:8). "Stranger" is Hebrew muzar which is related to mamzer or bastard / illegitimate. All this rejection and lack of attention set David up for what was likely some form of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Dt. 23:2-4 was clear that a Moabite could not enter the congregation of Israel until the 10th generation. And David was descended from Ruth the Moabitess (Ruth 4:13-17). And so his faith in God's word of promise, that he would really be king, is in tension with his fear that he would be shamed and never accepted as Israel's king- seeing he was illegitimate, and not fully Hebrew. In addition to this Dt. 23:2 likewise says that an illegitimate man couldn't enter for ten generations: “One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of Yahweh; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of Yahweh".
Psa 51:6 Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts-"Desire"
can be translated simply as 'love'. God loves truth in the inward parts-
not a list of theological propositions called "the truth", but the final
truth is that we deeply confess our sins in our innermost heart, and are
recreated there by God's Spirit. This should be our greatest desire; for
it is God's greatest hope and desire for us.
"Desire" is the word used by David at the end of his life of how God
desired or delighted in him (2 Sam. 22:20 "He delivered me, because He
delighted in / desired me"). Perhaps this desire or delight
was because of the "truth" in David's heart in recognizing his sins and
accepting God's grace. God did not "desire" sacrifice as much as this
truth (s.w. Ps. 40:6; 51:16).
Truth is something God wants to find in us, it is what we give to God, not answer of intellectual truths He gives to us. To know the depth of our son and also of our salvation, to see us as God sees us- this is the final Truth. The truth to live by. "I acknowledge..." in :3 in Hebrew puts the stress upon the "I". David now perceives that God indeed saw all aspects of his sin. And now he too sees it. He sees himself as God does, and this is the "truth" which God desires.
Through his experience, David came to know what he calls 'truth in the
inward parts': that the
required sacrifice was a desperately broken and contrite heart (Ps.
51:17). Repentance is really about recognizing this truth within us; this,
and not a set of theologically pure propositions, is the ultimate "truth". According to Paul's use of the Bathsheba incident, David's
learning curve must be ours. There are other links which show
that David's sin, desperation and restoration are typical of the
experience of all God's true people (e.g. Ps. 51:7 = Is. 1:18).
His very innermost being would then be able to learn more
deeply of God's real wisdom. There is a connection between David knowing
God in his "hidden part", and Ps. 32:7: "You are my hiding place", or
'hidden part'. This shows that David felt that after his repentance, God
Himself would live in David's 'hidden part', that part of his mind and
thinking which no one else knows. Through knowing God, God would come and
live in that part which truly knew God. The tabernacling of God in our
'hidden part' also requires us to come to know Him, as David did.
You teach me wisdom in the innermost place- Here again we see the activity of God's Spirit on the very innermost parts of the human psyche, the "heart". The "innermost place" is "the secret heart"; the Hebrew battuhot is related to the Egyptian word Thoth, used for the Egyptian god of the secret heart. David had sinned "secretly", but he now realized that the use of messengers meant that actually all Jerusalem knew what he had done; and likewise God knew what he had done, it was all done "in Your sight". He now realizes that the secret place of his inner heart where he had hidden the sin was what needed reformation. He asks God to enter it and teach him there, and create there a pure heart. God can create in us a new heart, even though the mind of the flesh is still present with us (Rom. 7). He can place His way and wisdom in that new heart; Job 38:36 speaks of God putting wisdom in the inward parts, and giving understanding to the heart.
Psa 51:7 Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will
be whiter than snow-
"Purge" is literally de-sin, to 'unsin'. The Hebrew word is
based around the standard word for sin, chata. This de-sinning is
a strange idea for us, because the forgiveness we experience in human
relationships cannot ultimately take away our sin, or as Paul would put
it, cleanse the conscience. This de-sinning is shown by God's "play on" to
David and acceptance of his marriage to Bathsheba, and choosing the blood
line of His Son through her children. John appears to apply these words to
every man: "The blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin" (1 John
1:7). "All sin" doesn't just mean all committed sins, but sin in all its
forms.
It should be noted that David / Bathsheba language is used to describe Israel's spiritually fallen state (e.g. Ps. 38:7 = Is. 1:6; Ps. 51:7 = Is. 1:18 "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow"; Ps. 65:2 = Is. 40:15). David recognized this in Ps. 51:17, where he likens his own state to that of Zion, which also needed to be revived by God's mercy. As David's sin is likened to the killing of a lamb (2 Sam. 12:4), so the Jews killed the Lord Jesus. The troubles which therefore came upon his kingdom have certain similarities with the events of AD67-70. They were also repeated in the Nazi Holocaust, and will yet be. Israel are yet to fully repent after the pattern of David.
"Purge me... and I
shall be clean... create in me a clean heart" (Ps. 51:7,10) shows that David
understood the 'me' which needed cleansing as being his own mind. This was
clearly a result of the great level of self-examination which brought
forth his real repentance. "Against thee, thee only have I
sinned" (Ps. 51:4) was a conclusion wrung out of so much reflection about
what he had done; as is his recognition that his "sin" had involved many
"transgressions" (Ps. 51:3).
Psa 51:8 Let me hear joy and gladness-
It is possible to intensely believe in the mercy of God, His ability
to save, and yet not have the real faith- which is to believe that this
mercy and salvation really can still apply to us personally. Thus he prays
"Let me hear joy and gladness". His introspective world of
sin and self-hate found joy a paradigm impossible to relate to; as with
mercy and salvation, he knew spiritual joy existed, but seemed unable to
make this apply to him personally.
So that the bones which You have
broken may rejoice- Here we see the contrast with the Lord Jesus, who
identified with David's feelings after the sin with Bathsheba, but whose
bones were not broken.
Psa 51:9 Hide Your face from my sins-
In :4, David recognized that he had sinned in God's sight, before
His face. The paradox is that once we recognize that, we can ask God not
to look at our sins. Paul can speak in Rom. 7 as if he is two different people; “I myself serve
the law of God”, but “my flesh” serves sin. Likewise
David asked God not
to hide His face from him, David
personally, (Ps. 27:9; 69:17; 102:2; 143:7), but to hide His face from
David’s
sins (Ps. 51:9). And one
wonders whether the way the records of the Lord’s temptations are written
implies some similar recognition by the Spirit of the two ‘men’ within the
Lord.
Psa 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, renew a right spirit within me- Here we see clearly enough that God can work directly on the human heart or spirit, through the work of His Holy Spirit (:11,12). His Spirit works upon the human spirit. And the same word for "create" is used of the natural creation; here we have the doctrine of a new creation in the hearts of people, of the kind repeatedly offered to the exiles in later Isaiah- if they followed David's path of repentance. This direct work of God on the heart is likely what is in view when God offers to circumcise the heart of His people (Dt. 30:2,6,10) if they abide in the covenant. For in that figure we again have the picture of God working delicately and intricately on the most personal and sensitive parts of man. Here we have the OT equivalent of the "new creation", a new and clean heart created. Not the old heart slightly adapted and improved, but the creation of a new heart / mind. But this is the promise of the new covenant in Ez. 36:26,27. The new covenant was therefore based upon what was done to David after his repentance. And it was initially offered to the exiles who also had no chance to offer sacrifices; and so much of the language in Ps. 51 is applied to the exiles. But the offer was if they would accept that David's sin was theirs. And that is how things are today. The new heart isn't created in so many because they refuse to accept the desperation of their position before God. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit after the Lord's death is therefore an intensified form of what was already possible even for Old Testament man. Tit. 3:5 surely has this passage and the whole David and Bathsheba affair in view: "Not by works of righteousness which we have done [cp. "sacrifice and offering You do not desire"] but by His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit". This new heart is clean, has the spirit of freedom / willingness, "where the spirit of the Lord is, there the heart is free" as Paul puts it; it is renewed, fresh, experiencing newness of life, rejoices in the certainty of salvation, assured that all sin has been washed and all stains removed for ever, aware that God sees all that is in it. But that heart is also convicted of sin and described as broken and contrite. This is the heart we are to have, what Paul calls "the spirit", the mind of the spirit, Christ in you the hope of glory. The mind of the flesh is still with us and wars with it. But this is the real me. Most people live life in survival mode, in crisis management mode living day by day, worrying about their work, financial issues, conflict with children, parents, relationships, partners; worried they aren't putting money aside for retirement, stress in the workplace, at home, health issues. As believers we aren't exempt from any of these things. But this is all life in the flesh, and yet parallel to that we have the life in the Spirit. And that heart, created in us by the Spirit, must be our real heart of hearts, inward parts identity.
David felt that his youth was renewed like the eagle's in his repeated experience of God's grace (Ps. 103:5), that his soul was restored (Ps. 23:5), and that a right spirit could be renewed by God within him (Ps. 51:10). This is the equivalent of the "newness of life" which is promised to us through acceptance of God's Spirit. As God doesn’t faint or weary, so somehow those who identify their lives with His will also keep on keeping on- even now (Is. 40:31 cp. 29).
David had earlier understood that for the humble and righteous, God can "prepare their heart" (Ps. 10:17). This is evidence enough that God works directly upon the human heart and psychology, which He does today through the work of His Spirit upon the human spirit. For it is men who must prepare their heart in prayer and relationship toward God (s.w. 2 Chron. 12:14; Job 11:13; Ps. 7:9). But God can also do this for the humble. Hence David later asks God to create in him a 'prepared' heart (s.w. Ps. 51:10). And God heard; for the same phrase is used of how God 'prepared' or (AV) "fixed" his heart (Ps. 57:7; 108:1; 112:7). In allusion to this, Solomon was to later reflect that God can direct or 'prepare' (s.w.) the heart of man, even if he is thinking to direct his steps elsewhere (Prov. 16:9).
Psa 51:11 Don’t throw me out from Your presence, and don’t take Your
spirit of holiness from me- The implication seems to be that whilst
we are in God's presence, in covenant relationship with Him, then His Holy
Spirit is working in our lives and hearts (:10). This is the litmus test
as to whether we are in fellowship with God- rather than acceptance of any
particular set of theological propositions. The request for restoration of
the Spirit in :12 could suggest that God had withdrawn His Holy Spirit
from David in the time between the sin with Bathsheba and his repentance;
but see on :12. If we go with AV "Holy Spirit" we may have a
reference to an Angel, for the term is used in Is. 63 of the Angel that
was with Israel in the desert. And David was aware of how the Angel of
Yahweh encamped around him. But the context here is of matters of the
deepest heart, and God's work upon the human heart to cleanse it and renew
it (:10). David perceived the working of the Holy Spirit as it works
today, in the hidden places of the human heart, and he dearly wants this
work and presence to continue. The parallel between presence and Spirit is
found again in the teaching about the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit.
It is repeated in Ps. 139:7: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I
flee from your presence?”.
The work of the Holy Spirit here in Ps. 51 is in line with how the New Testament speaks. This gift of a holy spirit has been made yet more powerful through the Lord's death, whereby the Spirit is poured out into human hearts far more abundantly. But here we see what it looks like- God's presence, joy of salvation, a free or willing to give heart. David's fear he may lose this surely alludes to his experience when first anointed [a symbol of receiving the Spirit] in 1 Sam. 16:13. He fears he will be treated like Saul, and have this gift of the Spirit's abiding presence withdrawn from him.
Psa 51:12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, uphold me with a
willing spirit-
The new heart, filled with the Holy Spirit, is convicted of sin and yet is certain of salvation, and rejoices in this. This is the "truth" God desires in the inward parts, the new heart. The heart of the flesh is still with us, with all its doubts and fears. But the new heart, "the spirit", is certain of salvation. This explains why believers still have doubts within them of salvation- but that is the old man, the flesh. The words for "joy" and "salvation" are found in Zeph. 3:17, where it is God who rejoices over saving us ["He will save, He will rejoice over you with joy"]. In the new heart, we see ourselves as God sees us- sinners, with no sin hidden from His seeing, and yet saved. His joy in our salvation is to be ours.
Paul teaches that where the spirit of the Lord is, there the
heart is free. And he surely had these words in mind, again applying
David's experience to us all. Ps. 51:11,12 speaks of God's "free spirit"
[AV] [or 'willing spirit' NEV],
paralleling it with God's Spirit, His "presence", the "joy of thy
salvation". All those terms are parallel. God wills us to be spiritual,
with His "willing spirit". The spirit of God is His
presence, His salvation, joy, freedom. The Hebrew translated "free" really
means 'generous'- the generosity of God's Spirit / mind / ways is shown in
His forgiveness and saving of us. If God's spirit is His character, then,
it is free, joyous, generous etc. Human beings can also have a "free
heart" - the same Hebrew word appears translated like this in 2 Chron.
29:31 etc.- i.e. a spirit of generosity. When we have this, we are
reflecting the "free spirit" / attitude of God. Whenever we are generous,
His Spirit, with all its generosity, dwells in us and becomes our spirit.
It is in this sense that I see a window into understanding the gift of
God's spirit into the heart / mind / attitude of the believer. If God's
spirit is free / generous, then so is ours to be; if His Spirit is joyous,
just, true etc., then so is ours to be. In this sense we receive of His
Spirit by reflecting His free and generous mind to others.
There is good reason to think that David did not spiritually crash
completely, during the months in which he refused to fully
acknowledge his sin. Although he no longer felt confident of having God's
salvation, he still felt that God's Spirit / presence was with him. Hence he
prayed in his confession: "Cast me not away from thy presence; and take
not thy holy spirit from me (i.e. he felt that he had these things even
then). Restore unto me the joy of salvation...thy free spirit"
(Ps.51:11,12). He was very conscious that God was so closely watching him:
" Hide thy face from my sins...against thee (have I) done this
evil in thy sight" (Ps.51:4,9). "Day and night thy hand was
heavy upon me" (Ps.32:4), he later recognized as he reflected upon God's
close scrutiny of his life during those unrepentant months.
Psa 51:13 Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, sinners shall be
converted to You- Being so certain of having received God's mercy, and therefore knowing
the joy of living in good conscience with God, led David to preach to
those around him. And he was certain that if he were forgiven and
restored, he would make converts on the basis of this wonderful
grace being publicized. Note too that Psalm 32
is a 'Maschil' psalm- 'for instruction', or teaching of others. If we have really
experienced the mercy of God, we will preach to others from our
personal experience. 'Preaching' will not be something which we will have
to will ourselves to do, nor will it be just a compartment of our lives.
Like David, our very existence, the very spirit of our lives, will be an
open proclamation of what God's mercy has achieved in us. And indeed David turned men to God after he himself had turned back to Him in
repentance about Bathsheba. And we will only be powerful
preachers if we preach likewise.
Morally disgraced in the eyes of all Israel and even the surrounding nations, not to mention his own family, it could be argued that David didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to telling other people how to live their lives. A lesser man than David would have resigned all connection with any kind of preaching. But throughout the Bathsheba psalms there is constant reference to David's desire to go and share the grace of God which he had experienced with others (Ps. 32 title; 51:13). He titles them ‘maschil’- for instruction / teaching. “Have mercy upon me, O Lord... that I may shew forth all thy praise in the gates” (Ps. 9:13,14).
When David wrote that “Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee” (Ps. 51:13), he was paralleling his teaching with others’ conversion- in a way that suggests he was so confident that his preaching would certainly bring forth conversion. Yet distribution of leaflets, countless conversations... all these preaching activities are inevitably repetitious, and so few respond that we can lose our basic love for our fellow man, and lose the hopeful spirit which pervades throughout the self-revelation of our Heavenly Father.
Psa 51:14 Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, the God of my
salvation. My tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness-
Deliverance from blood guiltiness is the language of Ez. 3:17-19; 33:7-9.
There, it is achieved by warning others of the judgment for their sins,
and this is exactly the context of the preceding :13. This is David's vow
to warn others against sin, based on his own experience. It could be
argued that the existence of these Psalms, especially the maschil /
teaching Psalm 32, is the fulfilment of these vows. But historically,
there is no record of David warning others against the sins of adultery
and murder. Instead we read of him not disciplining his children in regard
to these very things, and his continued advocacy of murder to his son
Solomon. Again we ponder whether David maintained the feelings he now
expresses.
Deliverance from sin was to be the prayer of the exiles (Ps. 79:9 s.w.); again, David's path of repentance and restoration is set up as the pattern for the exiles. Solomon often speaks of righteousness delivering the wise; he has missed the desperation of his father, who prayed for God to deliver him.
David's prayer of repentance and request to be saved from "blood guiltiness" (Ps. 51:14) is literally 'from blood'. He was a man of blood and was guilty of Uriah's innocent blood. David had asked for 'men of blood' to be slain (Ps. 55:23 s.w.), those who had taken the blood of the innocent (Ps. 94:21), and for 'men of blood' to be expelled from his presence (Ps. 139:19). And it is not at all clear whether all those Psalms were written before his sin with Bathsheba. God was trying to teach David that he was the type of person whom he condemned. And yet it is unclear if he learned that lesson. Solomon liberally condemns the man who sheds innocent blood (Prov. 6:17; 28:17), refusing to recognize that his much lauded father had done just this, and was only saved by grace and not by any obedience to wisdom. There is so little grace in the book of Solomon's Proverbs because Solomon had failed to perceive the grace shown to his father.
The desire to be saved from blood guiltiness could also be read as a desire to be saved from the consequences of the shedding of Uriah's blood. Ahithophel, Bathsheba's grandfather, turned against David because of it. Again we note that his desire to be saved from shame and the consequences of the sins appears greater and more frequently stated than his desire for forgiveness.
Psa 51:15 Lord, open my lips; my mouth shall declare Your praise-
During the illness David endured after the sin with Bathsheba, it seems he
may have suffered a stroke which left him dumb. He wanted healing so that
he could then praise God. "Declare" is used here for David's declaration of praise after his
forgiveness concerning Bathsheba; the "truth" which David
"declared" after his forgiveness (Ps. 30:9) was the ultimate truth, of God's
forgiveness of him by grace; a 'declaring' of his sin (Ps. 38:18 s.w.) and
God's forgiveness.
Psa 51:16 For You don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it; You
have no pleasure in burnt offering- As noted on Ps. 20:13, success in war and answer to prayer was thought
to depend upon the offering of sacrifice. After the sin with Bathsheba,
David now matures in his understanding- that salvation and God's operation
with His people is by grace and not because He desired sacrifice (Ps.
40:6; 51:16,17).
This was spoken by
David perhaps more concerning this sin of presumption for which there was no
sacrifice prescribed, rather than about the actual sin of adultery.
The sin of presumption, however, must not give us the impression that David was a hard, callous
man. Everything we know about him points to him be a big hearted, warm
softie. David's sin with Bathsheba was in that sense out of character. Yet
such is the stranglehold of sin that even he was forced to act with such
uncharacteristic callousness and indifference to both God and man in order
to try to cover his sin.
The situation here is again alluded to when Isaiah suggests that Judah are in the same position as David, in that sacrifice will not help them: "The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me? says the LORD. I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats" (Is. 1:11).
Psa 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite
heart, O God, You will not despise- See on :7. Joel 2:12,13
applies this to all God's people: "Rend your heart and not your garments".
David had "despised" God's word (2 Sam. 12:9) but he is confident that he
will not be despised by God in return, because of the state of his heart.
Again we have just a slight possible concern that David is using his state
of heart as a bargaining chip with God, rather than just begging for
grace. As noted on :1, this
is David's response to the judgment threatened in Ps. 50:8. David was aware that God didn't really want sacrifice, or else he would
so eagerly have offered it. Instead, David perceived that
what God wanted in essence was a broken and contrite spirit. The Bathsheba
incident was programmatic for David's understanding of God, and his
prayers and psalms subsequently can be expected to have constant allusion
back to it. We meet the same idea of God not ultimately wanting sacrifice
in Ps. 40:6-9: "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire [but instead]
mine ears hast thou opened [Heb. 'digged'- a reference to a servant being
permanently committed as a slave to his master]: burnt offering and sin
offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come... to do thy
will... thy law is within my heart". In Ps. 51:17, David had reasoned that
instead of sacrifice, God wanted a heart that was broken and contrite.
In Ps. 40 he reflects that instead of sacrifice, God wants a heart that has the
law of God within it. This ultimately is the effect of God's law being in
our heart- it creates a broken and contrite heart. But how? In the
experience of most of us, the law does this through convicting us of our
inability to keep the it. And so we see how guilt and grace work so
seamlessly together. David's broken heart was a heart which knew he had
sinned, sinned irreversibly, and condemned himself. But this, he
perceived, was the result of God's law being within his heart. But the
words of Ps. 40:6-9 are applied in the New Testament to the Lord's death
upon the cross. What's the connection, and what's the lesson? In essence,
through David's experience of sin, and the work of God's law upon his
heart, he came through that sin to have the very mind of the Lord Jesus as
He hung upon the cross, matchless and spotless in His perfection, as the
Lamb for sinners slain. Again and again we see the lesson taught- that God
works through human sin, in this case, in order to bring us to know the
very mind of Christ in His finest hour of glory and spiritual conquest. We
must not only let God's word work its way in us; but we need to recognize
when dealing with other sinners that God likewise is working with them. He
doesn't shrug and walk away from sin; He earnestly seeks to use our
experience of it to bring us closer unto Himself.
Psa 51:18 Do well in Your good pleasure to Zion, build the walls of
Jerusalem-
It
seems apparent the Psalms were re-written over time, and hence have
relevance to various historical settings. Psalm
51 down to :17 is clearly relevant to David’s sin with Bathsheba.
But then, in order to make the entire Psalm an acrostic, we find verses
apparently ‘added’, referring to God building the walls of Jerusalem and
acceptable sacrifice being offered again in the temple [which didn’t exist
in David’s time]. David’s sin and restoration was evidently understood by
some inspired scribe or prophet at the time of the exile to speak to
Judah’s sin, punishment and restoration. Hence the apparent changes of
some passages from “I” to “we”.
David saw his sufferings as being bound up with those of Israel; those who hated him hated Zion, those who blessed him blessed Zion, and God's salvation of Israel was being expressed through God's deliverance of him in the daily vicissitudes of life; as God had chosen Zion, so He had David His servant; David's joy was Zion's joy, and her exaltation would be David's (Ps. 51:18; 69:35; 87:2; 106:5; 121:3,4; 125:1; 128:5; 146:10; 149:2). This is how we are to make sense of suffering- by understanding that it plays a role in the salvation of others, and is part of a wider nexus of Divine operation. We suffer so that we may be able to minister the comfort we receive to others (2 Cor. 1:4). Job likewise came to realize that his sufferings were not so much for his personal maturing, but for the teaching and salvation of the friends.
Although indeed this Psalm may have been rewritten during the exile, hence the reference to the building of Jerusalem's walls, it is quite possible that David even in his humiliation and contrition reverts to his old dream- of Zion, his own citadel, being built up as a temple. We note that Solomon built not only the temple but also at the same time, a wall around Jerusalem (1 Kings 3:1)- presumably because this was part of David's vision for Zion. The promises of 2 Samuel 7 had sought to correct his vision about this- but even in his desperate contrition, he clings on to that hope and fantasy of a literal temple being built in his own backyard of Zion. Psalm 102, another penitential Psalm within the Bathsheba context, has even more to say within the Psalm [and not just apparently added on, as in Ps. 51] about how David wanted his restoration to be understood as the restoration of Zion.
Psa 51:19 Then You will delight in the sacrifices of righteousness, in
burnt offerings and in whole burnt offerings. Then they will offer
bullocks on Your altar- "Then..." connects back to the
statement in :17 that God wants a broken heart rather than a sacrificed
animal. The idea is that sacrifice will then be offered with the
understanding that the animal represents the broken heart of the offerer.
This surely alludes to the statement in the
previous Psalm that God doesn't delight in burnt offerings as much as in
trust in Him in the day of trouble (Ps. 50:8). See on :1.
After his sin
with Bathsheba, David perceived that God didn't require bulls and goats,
but rather the sacrifice of contrite heart (Ps. 51:16,17). But here
he again envisages offering sacrifice. We could conclude that he means
sacrifices now offered in the right spirit. Or we could see this as a slip
back from grace towards the old way of works-based thinking.
The force of "then" God would be pleased with sacrifice may suggest David still nurses the wrong idea that somehow a physical house of God would make the sacrifices pleasing to Him. The same word for pleasing or desiring is in :16 " You do not desire / are not pleased with sacrifice". But David reasons that when the temple is built, then God willing be pleased with sacrifice. He apparently still has a willful misunderstanding of the promises about his house and Messiah's house of people.
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